"Sun is shining. Weather is sweet. Make you wanna move your dancing feet." -Bob Marley

It has been three summers since I had a Teacher Summertime. There's a difference, you know. Summers in and of themselves are pretty wonderful what with swimming and watermelon and cookouts and trips to the beach {if you're lucky.} But a Teaching Summertime? That's a summer where you can do all those things and more twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for two and a half straight months and still earn a paycheck.

I didn't know it then, but it could be just for that reason alone that I went into teaching.

It's taken me a solid month to adjust to having a Teacher Summertime and I'm only just now getting the hang of it. Finally running again {hello, two month break after the half-marathon} but as I told some friends last night, I'm back to the phase of convincing my body that running is fun. My brain knows that it is and there are still those songs that, when they pop up in my iPod, remind me of the joy of finding strength in my legs and the sheer delight of racing through downtown Chattanooga. Yes, my brain knows it but all my body and my lungs can register at the moment is the sweltering humidity that lies here in the valley. Forget the whole "southern women glisten" crap. There's nothing but sweat on me by the time I'm done, dripping from forehead to chin to ground as I stretch out muscles struggling to recognize what three miles feels like.

And after a rather surprising spiritual desert in the midst of a blessing greater than I could have imagined, I'm finding my way back to the lap of my Abba. Settling into my summertime means space to listen, to think, to pray, to relish a study of this most appropriate book, Ruth. I'm a sucker for that one, it being my middle name and all. Even better has been to do a study that crawls through the verses, carefully uncovering nuggets of truth. In the uncovering, I'm realizing there's a tangible thread weaving from the Scriptures to what my heart and my spirit has been been trying to tell me. Be still...listen....do the most with where you are right now...be flexible...wait. So I am. 

Then there's this whole stay-at-home-wife gig. Temporary as it may be, it's a really great gig! I never knew I could find such delight in having time to clean, just to do those weekly chores that during the school year can be neglected for {oh, this is so embarrassing} weeks at a time. I still don't have the menu planning thing down but there needs to be some room for improvement, right? It's a gift to clean and do laundry and mop floors and vacuum in the most delightful housewifey way. A way that I know speaks love to my beloved and makes his end of day that much brighter. 

I'm finding time for meeting folks for lunch, quick road trips to new cities where old friends now reside, two hour jaunts at a random poolside {hour for the front, hour for the back and I'm done!}, an hour or so at Greenlife to read or write, and walks or evening games of fetch with Knox. There's finally time to explore some parts of Chattanooga that I haven't yet. Time to make multiple trips to Sweet CeCe's or listen to award winning musicians by the Tennessee River or watch movies in the park. Time to read new books or reread other favorite blocks of word candy.

Time.

Yes, my summertime has been just lovely and it's not done yet.